SODA-BP (Service Oriented Detection for Antipatterns in Business Processes)

We proposed a three-step approach, named SODA-BP, for the specification and detection of process antipatterns in business processes (BPs).

Step 1. Specification of Process Antipatterns: In this step, we identify relevant properties of business process-specific antipatterns that we use to define a domain-specific language (DSL). Later we use this DSL to specify business process antipatterns for BPEL processes.

Step 2. Generation of Detection Algorithms: This step involves the generation of detection algorithms automatically from the specifications in the former step.

Step 3. Detection of Process Antipatterns: In the last step, we apply the detection algorithms from Step-2 on a set of BPEL business processes.

Process Antipatterns in Business Processes

The business process-specific antipatterns that are specified and detected are described here.

List of Business Processes

All the business processes including the modified ones that we experimented with are listed here.

Results

We perform two experiments on two sets of business processes (BPs): (i) the set of 24 original BPEL processes collected from the open source search engine www.ohloh.net and (ii) the set of 11 modified BPEL processes from the former set after adding, removing, and modifying process elements with the goal of injecting antipatterns intentionally. The detailed description of modified processes are listed here.

The graphical representation of the detection of Lack of Synchronisation and Multiple Connections

The detection of Lack of Synchronisation antipattern in nrbc process (left) and auction process (right-top), and Multiple Connections antipattern in loan_approval process (right-bottom).